The present invention relates to a method for configuring a control unit. The control unit may be part of a vehicle or of another apparatus, for example a production apparatus. “Control unit” denotes a controller or a part of a controller.
In addition, the invention relates to a control unit.
Furthermore, the invention relates to a vehicle.
Control functions of a vehicle are allocated to function groups. These function groups are referred to as function clusters. The following function clusters are typical, for example: drive, chassis, safety, telematics, man/machine interface, bodywork functions and added-convenience functions. The assignment (allocation) of a controller to one or more function clusters is referred to as function cluster assignment or as configuration. To date, the function cluster assignment is stipulated in the program code of the controller during manufacture or when the controller is first started up. Each message (PDU=packet data units) that is exchanged between the controllers contains no more than 64 bits that the data source of the message can use to denote assignment or non-assignment of the message to each of no more than 64 function clusters for the receiving controllers. This limits the number of possible function clusters to 64 function clusters.
Although the address space of 64 function clusters is sufficient to distinguish all function clusters of a vehicle today, there is the following further development requirement, which is not readily compatible with the limitation to no more than 64 function clusters. Vehicle construction uses a building block principle, particularly also for control units and a software thereof. This results not only in a control unit typically being installed with the same software in different vehicle types (vehicle derivatives) but also in the same control unit being used in the different vehicle types with different subsets of function clusters. Hence, the function cluster assignment to be configured in the controller software is dependent not only on the controller type but also on the precise vehicle type (vehicle derivative). Since the function cluster assignment needs, according to the related art, to be stipulated in the program code of the controller during manufacturer or when the controller is first started up, this results in vehicle-type-specific software versions in practice, that is to say in an increase in the number of software versions for the same type of control unit. The wide variety of software versions significantly increases software maintenance expenditure and costs per controller.